


the heart may be the weakest part of me

by saucerfulofsins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (ish?), Angst, Bottom Keith (Voltron), Cheating, Cleaning up the mess VLD left, Confessions, Courtly Love, Divorce, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sheith-centric, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:16:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18306140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saucerfulofsins/pseuds/saucerfulofsins
Summary: Everything between them happens two years too late—because Shiro is now married to someone else, and Keith is with the Blades. After the first time, Shiro knows they should stay away from each other but he is weak and still in love with Keith.





	the heart may be the weakest part of me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for writing this, basically. I don't like cheating, I don't think Shiro would cheat and I actually wrote this after ranting about the many TV series where people constantly cheat on each other because I don't understand... but I've been under a lot of stress these past few months and my brain wouldn't let go of the idea, so here goes.
> 
>  WARNING: The work contains some implicit themes of violence; check the end notes for more detailed information.
> 
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/natawhale/playlist/6vN1Srskeq39m060lOgONg?si=z1tXOsDfRFKOqnxUz0BW1w)

 

Keith shows up on his doorstep late on a Tuesday afternoon.

Shiro lets him in, of course. This is the first time they’re seeing each other in five months, and it feels like an eternity.

“Nice digs,” Keith tells him, dropping his duffle by the couch and collapsing on it. He looks around, takes in the surroundings—and it’s the first time he’s seen where Shiro lives, these days. That he sees where Shiro’s made his home.

“Thanks,” Shiro shrugs. “Curtis picked most of it.”

He’s told other people repeatedly because it is true. To no one’s surprise, Shiro is too minimalist for the elegant touches of design all over the room. Out of all possible responses, he doesn’t anticipate the downward curve of Keith’s lips, there one moment and gone the next.

“Cool.” Keith leans down, unzipping his bag. “I got you something.”

He doesn’t ask _how have you been?_ Not _how has married life been treating you?_ Not even an _are_ _you busy_? Just Keith, acting like they last saw each other yesterday, this morning, like they’re still sharing close quarters on the Atlas or the Castle or circle around each other in the Garrison.

“I missed you, Keith.” The words are closer to the truth than anything else he can think of.

Keith doesn’t respond. He seems to ignore Shiro entirely in favour of pulling up a bottle filled to the brim with a pearlescent pink liquid, leaving him to wonder what he did to hurt Keith—because that’s what this has to be.

“Olkari booze,” Keith tells him, still avoiding Shiro’s eyes. “It tastes kinda like peaches. It’s pretty good even for Earth standards.”

Shiro finally notices how tired Keith looks, the dark circles under his eyes a shade of purple unnatural even on him; the paleness of his cheeks, devoid of all colour, how he seems to have lost weight. He wants to ask whether Keith’s been drinking, and if so, how much. If he’s been taking good care of himself.

He doesn’t. It’s not his place, not anymore.

“Okay,” Shiro tells him. He’s really supposed to be working from home to wrap up some reports, but he’s not going to tell Keith that now; he’ll risk the reprimand from the Vice-Marshal. “I’ll order pizza, there’s a good place nearby.”

Keith finally looks up at him with a weary smile. Shiro wonders how many close brushes with death he’s had since the last time they saw each other. He wonders if Keith cares—it doesn’t look like it, he doesn’t look like the man Shiro thought he knew. The spark in his eyes is missing and it sets off a _twang_ of pain somewhere behind his sternum, tugging sharply until he takes a deep breath.

“Pepperoni,” Keith tells him. “Please.”

Shiro nods and picks up his datapad to order.

-

The drink does taste like peaches but it’s not alcohol—not entirely. Keith must have known because he observes Shiro carefully, though only when Shiro isn’t looking at Keith.

“It’s good,” he tells Keith. “Mmm. Very tasty.”

Keith hums, rolling his shoulders back. He seems more relaxed now, some of the tension gone from his shoulders now that he’s slumped back in the pillows, three sips into his second glass.

Shiro feels fuzzy warmth spread through his body, his thoughts wrapped in fluffy cotton balls that make it easier to stay quiet—the silence isn’t as damning as it was before. He moves to put on slow music, the kind he listens to when he smokes weed on occasion; to quell his nervous anxiety and suppress the phantom pains that plague him occasionally regardless of the technological marvel that is his arm.

“This is nice,” Keith mumbles. They have left enough space between them to fit another grown man and that isn’t like them but Shiro doesn’t dare to move closer.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is.”

They sit in silence for a long time until Keith finally asks, “Are you happy, Shiro?”

He takes a deep breath and then turns to show Keith his smile. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like to think that I am.”

“Don’t miss Voltron? Space?” Keith presses on, his voice quiet. This time, his eyes stay on Shiro’s face, tracing his scar, the cut of his jaw. Shiro feels old familiar heat spread through his chest and pushes it away—he reminds himself again that this is not his place, and it is not the time for that. It won’t ever be.

“Sometimes,” he confesses. “It was… good. Exciting. But I like—I like this life, Keith. I like having someone to come home to, to _have_ a place I get to call home.”

Keith snorts into his drink and rolls his eyes. Shiro hopes it is fondness, but there’s a sharp edge to it.

“What?”

“Don’t see _someone to come home to_ here now, is all,” Keith tells him. He frowns immediately after and mumbles, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say that, it’s—this stuff.”

And it _is_ the drink. Shiro wonders if Keith chose to bring the Olkari liquor because he’s familiar with its effects, the way he seems less able to control what comes out of his mouth. Or maybe he’s more aware of it than he would have been, had they been drinking alcohol.

“He has a job,” Shiro informs him.

Keith stares at him for long, lingering moments. His now-blue-then-purple eyes still twist up Shiro’s guts, still take away his breath. He can’t remember when that started—sometime after his return Kerberos, he thinks. Probably. “ _You_ have a job.”

“He’s on the East coast currently,” Shiro says. “He’s overseeing the build of a Garrison sanctioned facility near New York.”  For a moment, he thinks Keith will ask more questions about Curtis. He’s been expecting them, the _where did you take him on your first date_ or _how did you know he was the one?_

Keith just bites down on his lip and looks away.

“What—” Shiro starts, stops, because he can’t stand this. He thought the booze was helping a little but even now Keith’s silence fills the space between them with impenetrable distance, cold and awful, and Shiro wishes he still knew how to poke through it. Once upon a time he thought that no matter what, he’d always _know_ Keith; now, he isn’t so sure. “How have you been? What have you been up to, these past months?”

Keith laughs. It’s sharp and hard and awful. Shiro hates it. “The same as usual, Shiro,” he says. “Saving the universe, working with the Blades, exploring outer space.”

The words mean nothing, they are hollow shells that reverberate what he sees in Keith’s gaunt face. Shiro’s aware he gave Keith an out, asking two questions so he wouldn’t have to talk about how he’s been doing. He hadn’t expected him to accept it so fully.

“Have you—” he tries again. Shiro needs to know, helpless though he is, awkward and fumbling and out of his depth. The past five months have done more damage than the time Keith spent thinking he was dead, the months during which he _was_ —even the two years Keith spent in the quantum abyss. “Have you been doing okay?”

Keith is silent for a long time, eyes flitting around the room. He’s retreating into himself again, the line of his shoulders tightening up until Shiro turns to his own glass of liquor. He downs all of it in one go and hears more than sees Keith do the same.

“I didn’t think you’d—” Keith inhales sharply, putting his glass back down with enough force to rattle the vase on the table. “I didn’t think you’d marry Curtis, you know?”

Shiro’s heart plummets in his chest, constricted by the same awful black tendrils that already turned the back of his tongue sour. _Don’t do this to me_ , he thinks. _Not now it’s too late._

“I didn’t know you—were this serious about him.”

“Keith—” Shiro starts, but Keith holds up his hand. He’s pouring in more of the drink, enough that some of it sloshes over the rim and down Keith’s fingers.

“I miss being close to you,” Keith rasps.

His face crumples in time with Shiro’s heart, the moment that Keith allows his feelings to surface bring along pain that is almost tangle. He’s always known, to an extent, that Keith was not unaffected by their bond. That _brotherhood_ was hardly enough to describe the true depth of their feelings, not when Keith looked at Shiro like he was the sun for so many years.

Shiro’s eyes turn wet and Keith is already crying, silent tears dripping down his cheeks while his mouth’s been pulled into an awful scowl that Shiro wants to kiss away more than ever, soft and tender. “Keith,” and then he’s reaching out because he can’t do _that_ because he shouldn’t _,_ because he can’t do that to Curtis—but he can dry Keith’s tears.

He’s making a mistake. The moment he touches Keith’s flushed wet skin, Shiro’s already fragile resolve shatters. Keith turns into his touch, gasping quietly before wiping his nose with his sleeve. It’s disgusting and so very Keith that Shiro can’t help but pull him closer.

“I miss you,” he repeats into Keith’s hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Keith’s shoulders shock and heave, finally breaking, and he can’t imagine that Keith envisioned anything like this happening. Maybe he’d hoped for closure.  Maybe he’d hoped to hear Shiro never would have reciprocated his feelings or see he moved on, fell out of love with Keith as he fell in love with Curtis.

Shiro doubts that is possible. Some days, even now, he feels like he’s still waiting for Keith—like maybe being with Curtis doesn’t matter when there’s someone else out there. When Keith has finally come to him, just a year too late and now forever out of reach.

Or, he should be out of reach. Shiro is still stroking his cheek and the thought circles through his mind, unbidden and unwanted. _I could_ , he thinks. _I could give Keith this, I could give myself this, find out what could have been_.

Shiro’s never been the type of person to betray someone’s trust. Not his partner’s, not his friends’. Yet, with Keith this close, with his tears drying under Shiro’s thumbs and his jaw already tilted up, eerie calm washes over Shiro. He’s aware of the implications and consequences of his actions, and he’s dead certain of his decision.

It’s not the Olkari drink. He’s buzzed, but he can still think.

“Keith,” he mumbles, slowly leaning forward.

Keith bites on his lip but his fingers are already threading into the front of Shiro’s shirt. “But Curtis,” he mutters, and Shiro closes his eyes, pushes the mental image of his husband away.

“This is between us,” he tells Keith. “Just once, just—”

“Just to know,” Keith finishes. His voice is scratchy and trembling and Shiro smiles at the ease with which he picks up on Shiro’s thoughts, even now. Even when he thought they’d lost that, somehow, after everything that happened.

Keith’s lips are chapped under his own. Shiro tastes the salt of his tears and the lingering sweetness of the booze, intensifying as he licks into Keith’s mouth. Keith kisses back easily, one hand finding the back of Shiro’s neck to keep him close; his nails are a little sharp and their teeth click together when Shiro pulls Keith closer.

Keith sighs into the kiss and bites down on Shiro’s bottom lip before soothing his tongue over the sting. For a moment he pulls back, looking at Shiro through half-lid eyes, and his smile is genuine but wistful.

Shiro smiles back and tucks Keith’s hair behind his ear. For a second, he thinks maybe that’s the end of it, but Keith moves back in for another tender kiss. Shiro’s chest feels tight; it’s becoming hard to breathe and harder still to think. That’s okay because he doesn’t _want_ to.

Laying back on the couch, he drags Keith on top of him. He’s pleasantly heavy, all tendon and long muscle under Shiro’s fingers; he runs his hand along Keith’s back and then down to his ass to squeeze its gentle swell.

Keith moans into his mouth and then pushes his face to Shiro’s neck, rolling his hips down. He sounds wanton, he _looks_ wanton, and for the first time, Shiro feels how hard Keith is, his cock pushing up against his thigh. His own hips shift up and Keith scoots forward until his leg presses between Shiro’s, until Shiro feels delirious, hot and light-headed. Keith feels marvellous under his fingers, responding to all his touches—moving into every one of them.

He gently tugs on Keith’s hair, pulling him back in for an open-mouthed kiss, all heavy breaths and tongues and lips that Shiro gets lost in. He’s wanted this, and it’s all that he expected but _more_ , _better_ , _greater_. A sense of completeness settles in his guts even as the molten conglomeration of tension in his belly grows into wire-tight pleasure that he chases by grinding up against Keith’s thigh.

“Shiro,” Keith mumbles into his mouth. His soft hair falls down his face, brushing Shiro’s cheeks, and Shiro takes another moment to stroke it back.

“Yeah,” Shiro mumbles back, “I’m here, Keith. Right here.”

Keith doesn’t let his hands wander—he limits his touches to Shiro’s waist and neck. Shiro wants to tell him that he _can_ , that it’s _okay_ , but he doesn’t want it to sound like an order. He’s afraid it might.

Instead, he wriggles around a little, flipping their positions so that Keith is underneath him. He’s looking up at Shiro with big eyes—his lips are puffy and his cheeks are flushed and all Shiro can think is that he’s lucky to have this, even if it’s only once.

He fits his leg back between Keith’s and watches Keith’s eyes fall shut, his jaw going slack as he moans quietly. There’s no sense of performativity to it, only Keith being his brutally honest self, making noises only when he particularly enjoys something and huffing quietly when he doesn’t. Shiro finds he doesn’t mind, loves it even—he has to work for this, and the pay is more than worth it.

Finally, Keith’s hands find their way to the hem of Shiro’s shirt, lingering for a moment before pushing underneath it. He tentatively traces the muscles along Shiro’s back and sides, then along Shiro’s abs until it tickles.

“It can come off,” Shiro whispers in Keith’s ear, kissing his cheek.

“Yeah,” Keith gasps, “ _please_.”

Shiro sits up to pull off his own shirt and then helps Keith, who’s fumbling with his own. There’s something intimate about slowly pressing their naked chests and stomachs together for the first time. Keith has plenty of scars of his own and doesn’t let his eyes or fingers linger on Shiro’s; they dig into Shiro’s back instead, keeping him close as Shiro drives his hips forward again and again, faster and faster.

Keith’s frown deepens and then he’s arching back off the couch, fingers scrambling across Shiro’s chest and his arms as he moans; Shiro can feel the jagged stutter of his hips as he comes.

Shiro tries to keep his eyes on Keith as he is pulled over the edge, coming hard in his pants. Keith looks up at Shiro with tired eyes and a content smile, watching him and stroking his cheek as Shiro rides out his climax against Keith’s thigh.

Then he sags through his arms, unable to hold himself up. Their sweaty foreheads press together and Keith’s fingers stroke across the short hair at the back of Shiro’s head. He can smell the lingering peach-drink on Keith’s breath, now stale and sickly-sweet. He can feel shame set in, an awful wrench in his guts worsened by his utter lack of regret.

“I’m sorry,” Keith mutters, finally, throwing his arm up and burying his face in the crook of his elbow.

Shiro can’t read his face like this and wonders if Keith really is—because Shiro realises with dismay that he isn’t. He remembers assuring Curtis this was something that would never happen. Something Shiro would keep him safe from. He’d been confident in his claim then, but Shiro is slowly learning that he’s hurt more people more than he thought. He thought he hadn’t hurt Keith, either.

“It’s okay,” he tells Keith, even though it isn’t.

He sits up and Keith stays on the couch.

“You can sleep here,” Shiro tells him. “If you want. I’m going to take a shower.”

When he exits the bathroom later, fresh and clean and still feeling dirty, Keith is gone and there’s a note. All it says is _I won’t tell a soul, don’t worry_.

-

Shiro fully expects Curtis to take one glance at him and know what happened. He is more than a little unnerved when instead Curtis returns home and kisses Shiro like he always does.

They fuck on the couch Shiro pressed Keith into less than two days ago, and Shiro finds himself closing his eyes and wishing he could travel back in time.

Shiro has always been a fan of kind honesty but he can’t find it in himself now. Instead, he keeps it secret and true regret for his actions never kicks in. He knows that a marriage’s contract shouldn’t be the leading factor in his shame—that he should care more about Curtis’ feelings, but he can’t bring himself to it when he feels for Keith this strongly.

As weeks and then months pass, the memory fades, slipping through his fingers like sand through his fingers. He tries to hold on but while some days it’s vivid as ever, there are times where he wonders whether it happened at all—or whether maybe it was a dream.

-

Keith doesn’t visit again until nearly eight months later. This time, he rings the doorbell in the dead of night and both Shiro and Curtis sit upright in bed.

“I’ll go get it,” Shiro mumbles.

Keith looks terrible. He’s visibly injured, walking with a limp and with blood dripping down his side; he makes it three steps inside before falling to his knees on the floor.

“Hey, Keith,” Shiro tells him after closing the door, grabbing Keith’s chin with his hand to force him to look up. “Keith, are you still with me?”

“Yeah,” Keith mutters, blinking slowly. “Just a scratch, don’t worry. Need a shower, then sleep.”

The lights come on and Shiro looks up to see Curtis cast a worried look down. It’s clear Keith isn’t okay and that they need to do something—but there might be a reason he didn’t go to the hospital or find a medbay on board of an allied ship. There must be and Shiro doesn’t ask.

He needs Curtis to help get Keith out of his armour, stripping him down to his underwear before manoeuvring him into the shower cabin. Keith stands up on unsteady feet; Shiro checks his body for external injuries but besides the nasty gash across his ribcage he doesn’t find any.

Keith looks more out of it than he should have, and Shiro wonders if he’s been drugged until he catches a hint of peach on his breath.

“Keith,” he whispers, quiet enough that Curtis won’t hear him over the shower. “Did—are you drunk?”

Keith shrugs, avoiding Shiro’s eyes.

The wound on his side has started to sluggishly bleed again; it’s not too deep but he’s going to need stitches. Shiro helps him dry and turns his back to Keith as he strips out of his wet underwear and into a clean pair of Shiro’s. He tries not to think too much about that, either.

“There’s a medikit,” Keith tells him. “In my bag. There’s gel and wound closure strips.”

“Galra?” Shiro asks him and Keith nods.

He’s familiar with these products. They won’t keep Keith from scarring and the Galra have better ways of healing people in their medical facilities, but they’re going to work better than human stitches. Shiro would know.

While Curtis heads back to bed, Shiro helps Keith put the ointment in the wound before taping it shut. Next, he tucks Keith in on the couch. He looks tired now, and thinner than the last time Shiro saw him—but there’s nothing he can do about that now.

“You should sleep,” he whispers at Keith.

The urge to kiss his forehead is strong but he refrains from it, and when Keith reaches for his hand, Shiro pulls away in favour of going to bed too.

-

The next morning, they eat breakfast together.

Keith looks sober, tired, and embarrassed, although he doesn’t tell them how he got hurt. All Shiro gets is a curt “Classified.” He suspects it might have been a bar brawl.

Curtis fills most of the silence with easy chit-chat, oblivious to the way Keith’s leg pushes against Shiro’s under the table. Shiro ignores him but he doesn’t move away either and he figures that makes him just as guilty.

Keith spends another night on their couch, falling asleep while watching a film, and Shiro can tell that Curtis doesn’t understand—not how _this_ Keith once was his best friend, not how Shiro’s stories match up with the young man asleep on their couch.

Still, when Keith leaves, he shakes Curtis’ hand and briefly hugs Shiro, muttering, “Dunno when I’ll be back. Take care.”

With that, he’s out of the door. Curtis whistles, raising an eyebrow at Shiro. “You never got to stick your good manners with him, did you?”

Shiro snorts. “Nope. Pretty sure he’s irredeemable.”

-

 Within a month, Keith drops by for a short visit.

Shiro takes him out for coffee. It’s friendly and not unlike what they did pre-Kerberos. Keith mostly talks about space and the things he’s been learning from the Blades while Shiro complains about the Garrison, their strict hierarchy odd after spending so much time in space with friends.

He doesn’t tell Keith how he prefers working from home because the new recruits ogle him and, what’s worse, the people who know him ask how he’s doing. He doesn’t tell Keith about how lonely he’s been.

Still. Keith is a comforting presence even as he scowls, lamenting the lack of decent beds on the ship the Blades have managed to procure. Shiro ends up paying for the both of them—he thinks the girl behind the counter might think it’s a date and he pointedly ignores her warm smile.

They hug before Keith is off again and, looking up, Keith’s eyes gleam purple and yellow, and they still steal away Shiro’s breath.

In hindsight, that might be the moment that irrevocably damages something in his relationship with Curtis.

-

He doesn’t see Keith for nearly six months.

Shiro worries—realistically, he knows Keith is fine, but only through the Garrison’s grapevine.

There’s nothing he can contact Keith with, beyond the Garrison’s satellites, and those are generally off-limits for personal contact that isn’t next-of-kin. Even Curtis starts to notice, which is surprising as he and Curtis—well.

With the official opening of the East coast Garrison base approaching, Curtis has been travelling more. Tension radiates off him and they’re squabbling a lot and fighting at times; sometimes Shiro wonders whether he knows his husband well enough or whether he should’ve waited. Done all of this without marrying.

Ironically, it means he’s alone a lot more than he’d like to be while that had been one of his greatest fears in fessing up his feelings to Keith. So, he eats alone and he sleeps alone, and sometimes he barely remembers Curtis’ touch by the time he returns home.

Shiro always remembers Keith’s burning hands on his skin.

One evening, things are worse than they have been in a long time. Curtis has been away for nearly two weeks, and all Shiro wants is a quiet night in, curled up in his arms. Curtis disagrees, wants to go out with friends, and Shiro loses his composure. He shouts and Curtis storms out to go stay with his sister and all Shiro feels then is empty, lonely and awful.

Then the bell rings and he wonders if the fight has somehow managed to summon Keith—because he’s there on his doorstep, radiant and beautiful and smiling up at Shiro tiredly.

“Hey,” Keith says. “You okay?”

Shiro snorts in lieu of a response; he knows Keith can see that he isn’t. “Are you?”

“Just tired,” Keith tells him. “I just got back from a mission.”

Shiro nods, biting down on his tongue while he takes over Keith’s duffle. He’s noticed this before—Keith tends to drop by after the more intense Blade missions. He wants to ask, but he fears Keith will refuse to answer, or worse, stop visiting.

“You can shower,” he tells Keith. “There’s clean towels in the bathroom.”

“I uh—” Keith hovers in the corridor, following Shiro into the living room. “I don’t have spare clothes on me.”

He doesn’t meet Shiro’s eyes but Shiro thinks the lack of clean garb might be something Keith’s done on purpose. The duffle he’s carrying is full after all, all items grimy or sweaty but too few to have lasted him six months. It’s another topic Shiro won’t breach, but he can indulge Keith.

“I can lend you some of mine,” he says. “And uh, I guess I’ll wash these.”

“Thanks,” Keith smiles sweetly before finally disappearing into the bathroom.

Shiro takes a few deep breaths; sometimes he wonders what the fuck he’s even doing. Then he grabs fresh clothes for Keith—boxer shorts, socks, a shirt and jogging pants should do the trick—putting them on the closed lid of the toilet with Keith still in the shower. Then he stuffs Keith’s dirty clothes in the washing machine, pouring more-than-advised soap in with them because it stinks. He leaves the duffle bag in the laundry room too, for that reason; he may have to convince Keith to throw it out.

By the time Keith is clean, Shiro is at the stove cooking rice and vegetables.

“Smells good,” Keith murmurs, looking over Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro expects a hand on the small of his back, the way Curtis does—the way couples do—but Keith’s settles on his shoulder.

“Thanks,” he tells Keith. “Go sit down, it’s almost ready.”

-

After dinner, they settle down on the couch.

The set-up is eerily reminiscent of Keith’s first visit, although this time he’s less shy about the glances he casts at Shiro. And Shiro wants, God—even if not for Keith, just for himself, he wants, he _wants_.

The tension is building, and he is painfully aware that Keith can feel it too, this _thing_ between them sizzling and burning, snaking its way back into Shiro’s belly until he can’t deny it anymore. Until he doesn’t _want_ to, because he’s still angry with Curtis, and he feels sad and lonely and those are all things Keith can help silence.

He is the one to shift closer to Keith, fully aware that Keith isn’t going to be the first to make a move here. Shiro looks at him, eyes tracing the sharp line of his jaw and nose, the corners of his lips that can’t settle on quirking up or down.

Shiro is also the one to fiddle with the band around his finger, before sliding it off and placing it on the table. It feels like a relief to not have it there. Then, he brings up his left hand and swipes his thumb across Keith’s bottom lip; his mouth drops open just a little and Shiro can feel the breath, hot and damp, on his skin. Keith remains perfectly still, watching him like a hawk. His quick breaths are the only thing betraying his nerves; the way his eyes stray to Shiro’s mouth is indicative enough of what he wants.

Still, Shiro can’t do this without explicit consent. “Do you want to kiss me?”

Keith’s breath hitches, almost imperceptibly, and he nods. “Always—I just. Shiro. You shouldn’t kiss me,” he whispers. “You really shouldn’t.” There is no conviction behind his words, and Shiro knows it’s merely Keith giving him a final out.

“I know,” he says. “But I want to. I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Keith tells him, and Shiro leans in.

It’s only when he feels Keith’s lips, soft and a little dry, that he remembers this is the first time they’re doing this sober; that it is only the second time they get to kiss at all. Not that it matters much when the only difference is that he’ll remember this better.

He _wants_ to remember this, every second of it.

Keith’s tongue is slick and expert at what he’s doing, licking into Shiro’s mouth and touching his fingers up and down his chin, his neck. He’s taking Shiro’s breath with his quiet gasps, growing a little bolder when Shiro gently bites down on Keith’s lower lip before sucking on it, ghosting his breath along Keith’s jaw and teasingly nipping at the skin.

He’s too hot and Keith is too far away, so he pulls Keith into his lap to kiss him again. The switch in height, with Keith now having to angle his head down to kiss Shiro, tightens the red-hot coil of pleasure in Shiro’s stomach.

“Fuck,” he mutters, looking up at Keith.

Keith is quietly panting, the loose fabric of Shiro’s shirt shifting over his collarbones. He’s looking dazed with heavy-lidded eyes tracing Shiro’s face. Shiro can feel the heat radiating from Keith’s legs, his groin and he assumes that he’s rock-hard by now because Shiro sure as hell is, because the only other time he’s seen Keith this way was when he was pressing him into this very couch.

He reaches out, still studying Keith’s face as he finds and pulls on the hem of his shirt. Keith understands Shiro’s implicit _off?_ and raises his arms, arching back just a little. Shiro watches the muscle move under smooth skin, broken here and there by silvery scar tissue that he runs his fingers over. Keith shivers and starts to tug on Shiro’s shirt; he gives in easily and pulls Keith close once it’s gone.

They kiss again, more desperate this time, and Keith’s hands find Shiro’s back, the ticklish spots on his ribcage that he squirms away from—provoking a quiet laugh from Keith.

“What,” he mutters, and Keith shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he tells him, but there’s a fondness in his eyes as he strokes the lock of hair from Shiro’s forehead. “Just. Nothing.”

Shiro nods. He needs a moment to let everything sink in as the situation once again hits him. He’s got Keith in his arms, warm and wanting and he’s allowed to touch him in all the ways he’s wanted for so long. The aching pit in his stomach slowly melts into something better.

Reaching up, he trails his fingers across the scar on Keith’s cheek. It’s healed well; he remembers when it was swollen and red, tight-looking skin. It’s flattened out now and it has lost most of its angry flush.

“The Blades,” Keith mutters, turning his head into Shiro’s touch. “They have creams, against scars. Injections. They help.”

Shiro nods. He wants to say _I’m sorry_ , but he should have done that a long time ago—by now, it’s redundant. He knows that Keith knows.

Keith presses another kiss to his lips, and then another, and then heat clouds Shiro’s mind once more. He lets himself be swept up in the moment, the motions, the taste and feel of Keith’s tongue and his skin; Keith’s hands, wandering down his chest and then lower and lower still.

“Can I?” Keith finally asks, fingertips resting against the elastic waistband of his underwear.

Shiro nods and Keith’s fingers dip below the fabric, brushing through the coarse hair before touching the base of his cock. He groans, pushing his forehead against Keith’s while his hips jerk up involuntarily.

“Sorry—” he grumbles, “been a while since—”

And it has, it’s been a month and he’s hated it, and Keith’s always had the power to banish loneliness from within Shiro but he’s never been this powerful before.

“Yeah, okay,” Keith soothes, withdrawing his hand. “Lemme—” and he’s up, wriggling from Shiro’s grasp. There’s a moment he thinks that Keith is going, is gone, but all he does is push down his borrowed pants and underwear.

His cock curves up towards his stomach, pink and slightly wet at the tip, and Shiro groans again as arousal spikes low and hot in his belly. Shiro’s dick twitches, wetting his underwear with precum. It gets worse when Keith wraps a loose fist around himself, lazily stroking while looking down at Shiro.

“I’m waiting,” he tells Shiro. He wants to ask _for what_ , but Keith is pointedly looking at his jogging pants.

Right.

He lifts his hips and pushes them down along with his boxers, feeling the wet slap of his dick against his stomach. Keith slowly drags his eyes across his body in a way that makes it clear he’s very much enjoying what he sees.

Then he’s crawling back in Shiro’s lap, kissing him for another moment before asking, “Show me how you touch yourself?”

“You wanna see how I get off?” Shiro asks, dropping his voice low, feeling Keith’s hair brush against his face as he nods.

He closes his eyes—just because that’s what he does when he’s alone. His left hand is warm on his dick, well-practised by now, dragging down his foreskin and pulling at it a little. Keith’s breath ghosts over his cheek in hot puffs and Shiro hears his quiet gasps, the moans and the tell-tale slick sounds of jerking off.

“That’s so fucking hot,” Keith mutters.

When he opens his eyes again, looking between them, he finds Keith is mirroring his movements on his own dick.  Shiro groans helplessly, his hips trying to tilt into the new wave of arousal. Keith must notice because he turns to look at Shiro, flashing him a smile.

“Didn’t think you’d take this so slow,” he whispers.

Shiro shakes his head, shrugs, unsure of what to say other than, “Yeah. You, too.”

Keith hums and drops his gaze again, watching Shiro’s hand move once more. His eyes are wide open now, keen to take in the sight, and Shiro isn’t going to last long—he never was, but he is greedy for more.

“Hang on,” he says, wrapping his prosthetic around Keith’s waist and pulling him flush against his front. Their hands are momentarily trapped between their bodies and Keith flushes, then smirks through his embarrassment.  Shiro smiles up at him, stroking his left hand up and down Keith’s spine.

Their dicks push together, and Keith needs no encouraging to roll his hips forward, creating dragging friction between their abs. He gasps out a surprised “ _Oh_ ,” that sends a tingle down Shiro’s spine, intense enough that his toes curl into the soft carpet.

“Yeah?” he mutters, sliding his hand lower to feel Keith’s ass. He’d somehow expected smooth, soft skin, but it’s a little hairy and it startles a laugh out of him—only to have Keith look amused. “Nothing,” he says, squeezing gently. “Just—wow.”

Keith rocks his hips again until he sets up a grinding rhythm that melts Shiro’s brain; his world is reduced to Keith, in his arms, on his legs, pleasure building as Keith rocks against him.

“Fuck,” Keith groans, moving faster. Shiro’s so close he can almost taste his orgasm, but instead, he leans up, tries to catch Keith’s mouth and lets their lips slide together wetly. He needs a little bit more, just a _little_ , and he can tell Keith does too—feels it in the way Keith forces his hand back between their bodies to take their dicks in his hand.

There’s nothing gentle or slow about his strokes now, even within the limited amount of space. He uses short, jagged motions, desperate, and Shiro pushes up into the feeling, both hands now on Keith’s ass. He chases the heat down to Keith’s puckered hole and rubs his finger across it so he can hear Keith’s gasped surprise.

“Fuck, Keith,” he’s panting frantically, “I’m gonna— _fuck_.”

“Yeah,” Keith mutters, leaning close to mouth at his neck and ear. “Come for me. Wanna see you, wanna see your face.”

It’s Keith’s low, rumbling voice that tips Shiro over the edge, dick twitching hard in Keith’s hand as he spills cum on their stomachs. He can barely breathe, vision whiting out as he rides out his climax; Keith has slowed down his strokes again, easing him through it until he’s empty and sensitive and begins to shiver.

Keith looks at him in wonderment, at the mess, and then drags his fingers through the streaks on Shiro’s stomach to scoop up some more. For a moment, Shiro thinks he’s going to taste it—and that’s going to be the end of him—but instead, Keith wraps his wet hand back around his dick.

That, Shiro decides, may be worse. There’s no forgetting this.

It takes only a minute before Keith comes as well. Shiro lazily strokes Keith’s thighs as he works himself through it, his body tilted forward and face pushed into Shiro’s neck as he whimpers and moans, his hips rutting forward—Shiro feels more wetness spread across his stomach, sliding down his skin, and his dick twitches feebly.

He keeps Keith close once he’s finished, pressing kisses to his cooling skin and breathing in the scent of him, of _them_.

Shiro finds himself wishing this was his entire life.

-

He leaves Keith to sleep on the couch.

He takes the decision after some deliberation when he figures out that he can’t stand the idea of bringing a memory of Keith into the bedroom. He knows himself, it would feel too much like introducing a ghost to the room, a phantom the size of an elephant.

He spends most of the night staring up at the ceiling.

Guilt is finally nagging at his guts. Once he could pass off as a mistake during a weak moment but doing it twice has made this into a fatal flaw. He knows he’s betraying Curtis’s trust, that he’s doing something he would admonish anyone else for—and somehow, he still finds himself unwilling to tell Curtis the truth.

Of course, kissing Keith isn’t the whole story; telling his husband about getting off with someone else or how Keith’s hot breaths and tender touches make him feel means he has to be honest about other things too. 

He knows he should do the right thing, and other circumstances he might have. If it wasn’t Keith, it would be easy—but Shiro knows that if anyone else made advances towards him, he’d have rejected them. Keith is his only exception, always, nothing like the guys Shiro normally falls for but somehow the person that stole his heart and ran with it.

He tries to convince himself it’ll be okay—that if he keeps his hands off Keith and makes sure they aren’t put in a situation where something could happen, that if he says _no_ the next time, they’ll be fine.

Still, Shiro’s aware that Keith has given him the choice twice, and he still seized the opportunity. Realistically, he knows he can’t—not when Keith is near and Curtis feels so far away. There’s no one else to blame but himself.

He groans and twists to his side again, wondering what the hell he’s going to do.

-

 “Are you okay?” Curtis asks him out of the blue one evening.

 “Yeah,” he sighs, sitting a little closer to his husband and curling an arm around his waist. They’ve fallen back into their easy day-to-day rhythm. Curtis cooks for him. He’s warm and soft and smiling gently and call him selfish but Shiro wants this, too, the white picket fence ideal he’s imagined for himself since childhood.  “Sorry, just. Busy day, a lot to think about.”

Curtis hums. “Not just today, though. Just—since the fight.”

It’s not the fight, of course, and Shiro knows it—but it’s easy to roll with it anyway.

“Yeah, I just, I’ve been thinking,” Shiro says. The omission is better than outright falsities, even if that’s because he doesn’t want Curtis to figure out that he’s lying. He feels Curtis tense up but shakes him gently, smiling offering him a kiss. “Not like that, don’t worry—just, about what I want out of life, I guess. What I need?”

Curtis nods, pushing his fingers through Shiro’s hair.

“I just—I never really sat down to do so, I guess,” Shiro tells him, and that much is true at least. He’s worked towards a future with a fast-approaching end date, not the seemingly endless fifty or so years that he has ahead of him now, provided that Haggar hasn’t meddled with his body too much.

He doesn’t mention that Curtis has plenty of cause for worry. He knows it is disingenuous, but his heart cracks at the thought of Curtis’ face falling, learning Shiro’s secret truths.

“You can always talk to me, babe,” he tells Shiro. “About anything. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Shiro forces a smile. “I know, babe.”

He knows that he can’t.

-

The little things disintegrate first. It’s a slow process, like erosion wearing a deep path into a hill or grinding stone into sand, the kernels smaller and smaller until Shiro can’t hold them in his hands any longer.

He tries.

He is sweet and considerate as he tries to make up for his cheating heart like maybe it will jump-start back into loving Curtis. They video call every night when Curtis travels, and once or twice Shiro takes off time from work so he can tag along. He buys bouquets of roses and on their two-year anniversary, Shiro takes Curtis out on an elaborate date—first to the cinema followed by a dinner at the Garrison’s disused observatory, where they eat under a 3D projection of the universe. Stars slowly twirl around them and Curtis’ hand is warm where it pushes against Shiro’s, but he finds his eyes drawn upwards; he wonders where Keith is.

Shiro feels useless--it’s not like Curtis needs him there. Shiro has no way to make himself useful; the last time he spent all his time in their hotel room because his face is too familiar to avoid attention and Shiro is not comfortable enough to ignore the stares.

He doesn’t like to dwell on his anxiety, the nightmares of Keith collapsing in front of a closed door with Shiro not there to help—but still, he worries that he’ll return home to traces of blood on the floor.

Instead, he talks about the sunset or what he cooked for dinner. He throws in phrases he’s been using for years now, says _I miss you_ and finds only after he closes the video messenger that the words are meaningless.

In the shower, he curls his hand around his hard-on and tries to think about Curtis, and when that fails, someone faceless and nameless. Instead, his thoughts inevitably slip back to violet eyes, pale hands stroking over his skin, down and down and—

Shiro sucks his lip into his mouth, biting back the name hard enough that he draws blood.

He’s losing the battle but for the time being, he’s still willing to fight.

-

The breaking point shows up, as it was fated to, in the shape of Keith.

Shiro is relaxing on the couch late on a Thursday evening, drinking tea and watching mindless entertainment on the television, when the doorbell rings.

Keith looks—he looks not so good, and he smells worse. Fuel, Shiro thinks with growing dread, and ozone mixed into the filth of a large spaceship. He hovers in the doorway for a moment before forcing himself into Shiro’s arms, holding him tight enough to bruise. Shiro stumbles back before steadying himself, wrapping his arms around Keith.

“Hey,” he mutters.

Keith doesn’t respond right away, tightening his hold on Shiro. His hair is greasy and his armour is grimy, covered in a thin layer of soot and grease that stains Shiro’s fingers.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

Keith begins to tremble in Shiro’s arms. When he listens closely, Shiro hears the irregular hitches of his breath and he wonders if Keith is crying—and he knows that whatever happened, it was bad.

Trying to pry answers from Keith is useless right now, but Shiro can’t settle him on the couch or in bed without first getting him clean and assessing possible— _probable—_ injuries. He guides Keith into the bathroom and reaches for the latches of the armour, stripping him down and letting the clothes drop to the floor.

He moves to leave to grab clean clothes and a towel when Keith’s hand closes around his wrist.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he confesses, still refusing to look at Shiro, his voice wavering.  

Shiro nods and brushes Keith’s hair back from his forehead before pressing a kiss there. Keith’s breath hitches again and Shiro promises, “I’ll be right back.”

He hurries to grab clothes and towels before undressing and slipping into the shower cabin with Keith. Keith immediately pushes close again and Shiro can see the lines around wrists where more filth’s smeared across red marks, the ones around his ankles, tell-tale signs of captivity. Anxiety swells in his stomach, large enough that it hurts but he breathes through it because he has to take care of Keith.

He turns on the shower and gently moves Keith so he’s under the spray. He’s shaking now, apparently unable to let Shiro go, so Shiro grabs shampoo and gently works it into Keith’s hair. The water comes away mud-murky, swirling down the drain in the ever-moving shape of a spiral galaxy. He lets the water rinse out all the suds and then washes Keith’s hair again until only clean water comes away.

He needs to clean the rest of Keith still—there are stark lines on his neck and hands where his suit ended, although some of it has crept into the seams. Shiro thinks he recognises this colour, this _smell_ , and most of all he recognises the terror in Keith’s eyes. He hasn’t seen that anywhere else in the universe.

“You made it out,” he whispers in Keith’s ears. “You’re here now, you’re not alone. You’re alive, Keith.”

This time Keith’s shoulders begin to heave as he sobs into Shiro’s chest. Shiro wonders if it’s easier for Keith to let go like this, with the water covering up his tears and whimpers. Shiro rub Keith’s back for what feels like ages until he quiets down at last.

“It was a mistake,” he tells Shiro in a quavering voice, his breath ghosting hot over his skin. “I wasn’t—I was undercover. We found a rogue Galra ship, Empire supporters and they wanted—it was—” he takes another deep breath like he wants to sound normal and Shiro hugs Keith closer. “Got spotted, chained up and they were going to have me _be an example_.” He spits out the words and Shiro feels the tremor that runs through Keith’s body. “But they forgot I’m small, enough to get into the vents anyway.”

“How long were you in there?” Shiro asks. He’s not sure Keith got thinner, but it’s also entirely possible that he regained a portion of the lost weight on his way back to earth—he contemplates the idea of Keith travelling back disregarding all else, only to get back to Shiro. He doesn’t know where the mission took him.

Keith shrugs. “I ate—maybe six times. Ration bars.” That’s three days he spent in the air vents at least, Shiro thinks. “I contacted Kolivan and mom but they couldn’t get to me right away.” He shakes his head. “It took a while. I thought—”

He cuts himself off but Shiro knows how that line ends. _I am going to die_. He still remembers the certainty of the thought, the fear it inspired once it was an inevitability each time he was thrown into the arena to fight.

“I—” Keith huffs before sighing, pushing his face to Shiro’s chest. He gently massages the soap into his skin, watching the dirt lift and free Keith of that blemish, at least. He’s glad to see he’s only got minor scrapes; there are a few scars new to Shiro, still red, but they aren’t this recent. The one across his stomach looks good too, healed into a thin stripe.

The shakes start up again then, and he holds Keith through them. He reminds Shiro of how his grandparents’ dog used to shake his muscles loose to release the day’s tension.

The shivers abate, fading into the occasional hitch of Keith’s shoulders. He doesn’t comment on it, doesn’t ask, because he knows Keith well enough—this isn’t something they need to discuss now.

Shiro doesn’t know how long they spend in the shower, but eventually, Keith looks up. His eyes are rimmed red and he looks tired but calmer now, his cheeks still a little flushed as he reaches for the soap. Shiro thinks about stopping him and realises this too is far more for Keith’s wellbeing.

Keith washes him slowly, his hands growing steadier as he puts his mind to it. When he gets to Shiro’s hips, Shiro angles away from him because he doesn’t want to make the situation into something sexual, but his body responds to Keith’s touches anyway.

Keith stops him. “Don’t,” he murmurs, and his soap-slick hands wrap around Shiro’s shoulders, firm fingers finding his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. Keith’s lips are soft and they taste of fresh water and soap, and he takes the lead, licking into Shiro’s mouth until their half-hard dicks push together.

Shiro can’t stop the quiet moan when Keith kisses up his jaw and down his jugular, occasionally letting him feel the scrape of teeth. “Keith—” he starts, and Keith cuts him off with a harder kiss, deeper and hot enough that Shiro feels it tingle down his spine.

“I need you closer,” Keith breathes into his mouth, his hand reaching down for Shiro’s dick. “You really, really should— _Shiro_ —”

Shiro’s out of control and out of his depth, only acutely aware of how close Keith wants him.

“ _Shit_ ,” he mutters, and, “are you sure this is a good idea,” and, awkwardly, “I don’t want to hurt you more, babe.” The nickname falls from his lips unbidden and something flashes behind Keith’s eyes, sad and dangerous, but there’s no time to examine it.

“I want to feel something that isn’t—cold, or awful,” Keith mutters, tripping over his words and already reaching out to cut off the water. “I know you know what that’s like.”

The thing is—Shiro does. He recalls the first night after escaping, desperate for anything that made him feel normal, good, suddenly understanding why people turn to drugs or alcohol. He hadn’t and he won’t, but he’s aware that he’s found something like it in exercise routines. Keith had found him that night, awake at 3 am and doing push-ups, and he hadn’t tried to stop Shiro because he understood, somehow, that that was what he needed.

He lets Keith turn off the shower and hands him a towel.

“Okay,” he says, the tremor in his voice obvious even to his own ears. “Yeah.”

-

Keith finds his way to the middle of the pristinely made bed. Years of living under the Garrison’s strict regime have instilled a sense of cleanliness and order in Shiro that he still finds impossible to shake.

He can still smell the laundry detergent in the air, feels the slight coarseness of the air-dried cotton under his fingertips as he crawls closer to Keith and then on top of him, pushing him down into the sheets. Keith’s hair dampens the soft purple pillow and Shiro takes a moment to look at him, to revel in the way their naked limbs fit together like this.

Keith’s eyes are wide as he watches Shiro, using his thumb to trace the line of his jaw and then the scar across his nose. It’s hard to breathe and harder still to look at Keith like this, because every inch of Shiro’s treacherous heart tells him that this is _right_ , that this is exactly where he is meant to be—now and forever. Because although Keith’s dick is pressing hard against Shiro’s hip, he pulls Shiro’s face down to tenderly kiss his eyelids and the tip of his nose, tender to a degree Shiro hasn’t experienced in years, or maybe ever.

“ _God_ ,” he breathes, because it feels like Keith is pulling him apart and putting him back together in a brand-new way, something brilliant and more whole, even in the aftermath of a mission that could easily have been Keith’s death and never Shiro’s.

He lets the moment drag on as long as he dares and then captures Keith’s mouth with his own. One of Keith’s arms slips to the sharp jut of bone as Shiro rolls his hips against Keith’s until their dicks slot together and the slide grows slick with precome.

Keith only breaks the kiss to mutter, “Not close enough,” and it’s layered with messages that range from a little stubborn to deliberately demanding.

“I know.” Shiro appeases Keith with another whisper of a kiss before climbing off him, digging through the drawer of his nightstand for the lube. It’s off-brand and has been mostly-full for ages, although Keith doesn’t need to know that. “How do you want to do this?”

Keith’s pupils are blown wide and he’s flushed pink down to his chest, confident in his body even as he confesses, “I haven’t done this before.”

Shiro knows Keith’s been with other people—even if that’s just because Shiro walked in on him with his hand down Kinkade’s pants, months before Kerberos. Before any of this, when things were uncomplicated, and they had no idea of what was to come.

He still feels it’s proper to ask, “What do you mean when you say _this_?”

“Let someone fuck me,” Keith says, spreading his legs a little wider. Shiro brushes two fingers over Keith’s hot hole and watches the way his chest hitches with a gasp. “I— _shit_ —just fingers, have a toy—” and Shiro’s eyes drift to Keith’s hands where he’s grabbing the sheets. He can imagine it all too easily because he has before, Keith on his knees with his face pressed into the sheets and pushing back on his fingers, using his free hand to jack off. Shiro’s dick twitches and he groans and Keith knows exactly what he’s doing when he delivers the final blow to Shiro’s sanity, “Saved myself for you, I thought of you every fucking time.”

“Christ,” Shiro groans, and Keith shoves the lube into his hand before he can reach for it. He pours a copious amount onto the fingers of his left hand because he wants to feel Keith and he wants Keith to feel _him_.

He spreads it around Keith’s hole before pushing a finger in. It goes easily, Keith dropping back onto the mattress and closing his eyes, his jaw slack as Shiro starts to move and feel around for his prostate. It doesn’t take long before Keith demands “ _More”_ , rolling his hips down against Shiro’s touch. Soon, he’s three fingers in and pushing up against Keith’s prostate. His dick is leaking precome onto his belly and Shiro’s going to fuck him in soon but for now, he drags his tongue through the slick and listens to the moan that falls from Keith’s lips.

“Turn to your side,” he finally instructs, using the prosthetic to get him to move. Keith whines at the loss of Shiro’s fingers but he still moves along easily, eagerly.

Shiro lies down behind Keith, wrapping his good arm around Keith’s waist and kissing his neck. It’s weird to be in this position; he’s not usually doing the fucking, and he’s certainly not used to taking things this slow. He rubs his dick against Keith’s ass in slow, rolling movements, until Keith is pushing back against him in a silent plea for more.

Keith squirms under his touch as he trails his fingers down ticklish ribs and sharp hipbones, then around the back to rub against the slick he left there himself. Then he lines up his dick with the hot, clenching hole waiting for him.

“Is this okay?” he whispers as he pushes in, damp black hair that smells of his own shampoo now sticking to his face. It’s new and different, and it’s something he never wants to lose ever again. “You said you wanted close, so I thought—”

“Yeah,” Keith whimpers, shifting in Shiro’s arms and pushing back against him, working him in deeper. Shiro’s eyes roll back in his head and he groans into Keith’s skin, his hand finding its way back around Keith’s waist. “Yeah, Shiro, I lo—”

He cuts off with a gasp when Shiro buries himself to the root with a smooth roll of his hips. He knows what Keith wanted to say but he can’t stand to hear it, burying his face in soft skin and dark hair. He doesn’t have the leverage to fuck in fast or hard or deep but it’s magnificent and better still when he feels the hands trace his own, their fingers interlacing as Keith takes another deep, shuddering breath.

“Close enough?” He lets his breath ghost over the shell of Keith’s ear and feels him nod. He kisses the delicate pale skin and noses along the soft downy hairs that were the first to dry and closes his eyes so he can lose himself in the feeling of their bodies together.

Time loses its meaning. Sometimes they move faster and sometimes slower; Keith pushes back against him when he wants more and guides his hand down to his cock, moulding Shiro’s fingers around it until he can fuck forward into a loose grip.

Eventually, he finds himself grinding into Keith hard enough that Keith’s almost on his stomach, his dick rubbing against the sheets.

“Want—Shiro, shit—” Keith is groaning into the pillow, his knuckles white where he’s fisting the sheets. “I wanna see you, _shit_ , Shiro, I need to see you.”

Shiro nods and whispers, “Yeah, babe, come here,” and pulls out before helping Keith turn to his back. His hair is tousled, frizzing where it’s dry; he looks wanton with his wide eyes and pink mouth and cheeks.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he tells Keith, pecking his lips before he finds his way back in, sinking home fast enough to leave them both breathless.

He digs his knees into the mattress and fucks Keith harder, filling the room with the sound of skin on skin and their groans and gasps. Tilting Keith’s hips up a little, Shiro pushes in as deep as he can on each trust until Keith can’t stay quiet, his head thrown back against the pillow and his hand finding his dick, pulling at it desperately as he chases his orgasm.

“Come for me,” Shiro grunts, pushing his hips forward with enough force to bump the bed against the wall. “Shit, show me how good this feels.”

“ _Shiro_ ,” Keith wails and then he’s spilling all over his belly, his chest, his dick twitching in time with the clenching around Shiro’s cock. Shiro barely manages to hold it together long enough to grind Keith through it. Then his orgasm washes over him, sending shivers up his spine and warmth through his belly and his limbs as he fills up Keith.

Keith’s fingers are surprisingly cool when they find the nape of Shiro’s neck, pulling him close. He lowers himself onto Keith and he knows they’ll get up to clean soon—when they grow cold and sticky. For now, Shiro wants another moment to pretend that he belongs in Keith’s arms, and Keith’s only.

He thinks Keith does, too.

-

That night, Shiro shares his bed with Keith.

It takes some time before they’re comfortable; Keith might have had sex before, but Shiro doesn’t think he’s slept with anyone else. Even then, he’s more amused than annoyed by Keith’s indecisiveness as to whether he wants to be touching Shiro or not, whether he wants to hug or be hugged.

Eventually, they drift off facing each other, occasionally sharing sleepy kisses interrupted by yawns until they finally trail off.

By the time he wakes up, it’s almost nine and Keith is still fast asleep. Shiro contemplates staying in bed, but he needs to piss so he disentangles their legs before getting up.

He’s washing his hands when the doorbell rings. It’s unexpected; he’s not expecting any deliveries. For a moment, he’s tempted to ignore the bell but then it rings again, and he’d hate to wake up Keith—he’d hate to ignore someone who needs his help.

It’s Curtis, Curtis who forgot his keys and came home early, and who takes one look at Shiro before asking, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says. _No_. His heart is pounding in his throat, threatening to choke him; belatedly, he realises that he’s not wearing his ring and by then it’s too late.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Curtis tells him, already stepping back. The tight press of his lips together is not unfamiliar after the past few months, but it has never been accompanied by his pale skin or wavering voice. “Didn’t think you’d have someone else over, though.”

Shiro closes his eyes and shakes his head. He’s ashamed of his actions, and he sees the hurt in his husband’s eyes even if he still fails to feel regret.

“Where is he?”

“In the bedroom.” Shiro sees no point in lying now.

“Asleep?”

He nods. “Probably. The doorbell might have woken him up.”

Curtis sighs. He’s wrapping his arms around himself, and then shoves them in his pockets but not before Shiro sees the shake of his fingers. “I can’t do this right now. I’m going to go, we need to talk about this, but not here, and not with—I’m guessing it’s Keith.”

Shiro averts his eyes as he nods. Curtis is practical and always has been; it’d been one of the things that drew Shiro to him. There’s something of a parallel there, one Shiro has never bothered to examine but maybe he should have. “I’ll be there,” he promises, “just… let me know a time and address, alright?”

The pallor extends under Curtis’ tan so that he looks ashen and awful; his jaw is clenched tight. He looks bad enough that Shiro thinks about calling Mary, have her pick up her brother, but Curtis looks ready to bolt and Shiro needs him out of here; he wants to keep him and Keith from seeing each other.

“Do I need to bring anything?” he asks.

Curtis stares at him for a long moment, increasingly incredulous, and then closes the door in Shiro’s face.

-

Keith is waiting behind the bedroom door, wide awake and pale as a sheet.

“I’m so sorry, Shiro, _shit_ , if I’d known I wouldn’t—”

Shiro cuts him off with the shake of his head and sinks down onto the edge of the mattress. His limbs feel like lead and he can’t breathe right, tears pricking in his eyes. He furiously tries to blink them away but they slide down his cheeks anyway—in the morning light, reality crashes into him and for once he doesn’t know if he can tackle the situation without risking casualties.

 “It’s not your fault,” he finally tells Keith, settling on the truth. “My marriage is my responsibility.” Keith looks worried still, his frown deepening. Shiro can tell he wants to say something, can see him biting his tongue, and adds, “If anything—if anything, I probably shouldn’t have married Curtis.”

The admission is three years too late. Still, a knot he didn’t know was there unravels inside his chest, making it easier to breathe.

“Don’t say that,” Keith tells him. “You love Curtis, you should be with your—”

“ _No_ ,” Shiro stops Keith again, rubbing the tears from his skin. “No. Curtis doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Anybody would be lucky to be with you,” Keith tries, sitting down next to him. He looks defeated and Shiro feels frustrated. There are so many things he wants to tell Keith—but he can’t. He doesn’t want any confessions to tie in with the sour memory of today.

“Curtis,” he starts anew, “deserves to be with someone who loves him in ways I can’t.”

“Oh,” Keith says.

Shiro hopes he understands.

-

Keith sits slumped over his breakfast while Shiro pushes eggs around on his plate. “I was thinking of going to Pidge’s place, so you don’t have to worry about me here.”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, and then Shiro frowns. “You don’t have to leave.”

“If Curtis is coming over—” Keith starts, and Shiro shakes his head.

“His sister lives nearby,” he explains. “He’s staying with her for the time being. I’m pretty sure I could do with some company when I get back.” Keith refuses to meet his eyes and Shiro sighs, rubbing at his forehead.  “Look, I’m not going to keep you here, but I need you to know I don’t blame you for anything.”

He’s not sure if the words sink in for Keith but he doesn’t counter Shiro again. Curtis’s text contained a list of things he wants Shiro to pack, and by the time he’s leaving with a bag of clothes, Curtis’s laptop and other requested items, Keith has settled on the couch with a cup of tea, watching something explode in an action film.

-

In the end, his marriage ends in a single afternoon.

When Shiro returns, Keith is still on the couch, curled up under a blanket and slowly blinking awake at the sound of the door. The television’s muted and playing an old movie, Keith’s hair is sleep-mussed and he looks a little better than when Shiro left him.

Shiro is exhausted, his chest and throat aching from the held-back tears that start to fall now that he’s in private. Keith guides him down, onto the couch and into his arms, gently scratching his fingers along the shaved back of his head.

Keith doesn’t pry for information, but Shiro needs to talk anyway.

“We’re getting a divorce.” His throat constricts again and he has to take deep breaths to relax. “Curtis’s idea. I agreed.” Keith hums, lips brushing against his forehead and his hand rubbing down Shiro’s back in calming movements.

He worries about his parents’ reaction once they hear the reason, his colleagues. Whether the small gaggle of friends he’s made over the past years will still accept him because they are also Curtis’s friends; most are Curtis’s friends first and foremost. The only best friend Shiro’s ever had is holding him right now.

“He said there was no trying to fix this if I could have you.”

“Shiro,” Keith soothes, his grip on Shiro tightening.

“It’s true, too,” Shiro soldiers on, because even if he knows he can’t say _I love you_ until he’s taken Keith out on a date until the divorce is official, he needs to let Keith know. “I missed you so much, Keith.”

“I missed you too,” Keith responds, and Shiro feels the rumble of his chest against his cheek, hears the sound resonate there. “And I’m sorry for staying with the Blades.”

“Don’t be,” Shiro tells him. “I thought I didn’t want to be alone, that I’d rather live with someone here who could be with me all the time.”

Keith hums. “Is that why you didn’t tell me?”

“It’s part of it.”

By the time Shiro figured out that he can’t be with anybody that is not Keith he already had a gold band around his finger. Before that, they were fleeting fantasies of a life with Keith that he only entertained at night, because he didn’t think he’d ever have that; because he thought he’d be dead by now and he didn’t want to hurt Keith more than necessary.

It’s too much to tell Keith now.

A moment of silence stretches into two, and Shiro dozes off until Keith speaks up again.

“It was hard to come back to earth,” he says. “Seeing you here, I mean, with Curtis. It felt like you were building a happy life without me, and then we kissed, and I didn’t know if you were unhappy or if I was just—if that night was a mistake, because it didn’t feel that way to me. And then I knew what being with you was like, which should have made things easier but it only made everything _worse_.”

Shiro combs his fingers through Keith’s hair. “Was that why you only came back whenever you nearly died?”

Keith chokes on a half-laugh, jostling Shiro. “Yeah. I came down a few more times and I wanted to see you then, too, but I got scared. I guess you heard from Pidge that I was here?” Shiro nods. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t stay away from you in the end, I guess.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Shiro tells him. “I have a question for you, actually. Does your mom know about us?” It’s something he’s been wondering for ages, now—maybe Keith isn’t close enough to her to tell her such things, but she’s perceptive.

“Yeah. Kind of hard to miss, what with the quantum abyss throwing this moment at us.”

He can feel Keith tense a little under him as he says it, but all Shiro can think is that it’s fitting. “Just this?”

“I didn’t see the wedding or you being with Curtis if that’s what you’re asking,” Keith mutters. “Didn’t know how much it meant, either, because we were quiet. I thought maybe we were just friends.”

“Oh.”

Keith shrugs, and Shiro props himself up on his arms so he can take a better look at him. He’s already staring back at Shiro, biting down on his lip. “I just knew I had to keep going back to you until we got this moment. Then when we kissed that first time, I thought that might be it but our clothes were all wrong.”

“That why you picked this shirt?” Shiro smiles, plucking at the hem of Keith’s—Shiro’s—shirt. He doesn’t mind, not at all.

Keith flushes. “Maybe.”

“Okay,” he says. He leans forward to kiss Keith and then hesitates. Keith is already pulling him in though, pressing their lips together like he’s been waiting to do this all day.

There are more things to discuss—and Shiro knows he’ll have to deal with the divorce and Keith will have to go on more Blade-sanctioned missions, but he’s exhausted and Keith is radiating the kind of warmth that relaxes his muscles, summoning sleep.

Shiro’s not usually the kind of person who takes naps, irrespective of how tired he is. Now, he feels Keith shift around to make himself more comfortable, draping the blanket over both of them and kissing his forehead again. After that, his arms wrap around Shiro, touching him with gentle, soothing motions until sleep pulls him under.

-

The divorce comes through four months later.

It’s a lot of paperwork and stilted meetings with Curtis and their lawyers. Plenty of people start to treat Shiro differently, especially when Curtis gets drunk one night and spills the beans on _why, exactly_ they’re breaking up. Shiro does not blame him.

He finds a new flat and Curtis does too. Staying in the old place didn’t seem right, even if it was the house Shiro picked as the location he wanted to grow old. In those fantasies, after all, he pictured himself growing old with Curtis.

Keith is back from his mission earlier than expected and lounging on the couch in Shiro’s clothes, his Blades outfit on the floor in the same place it was this morning; Shiro would comment on it, ordinarily, but today is no ordinary day.

The sun is shining and the wind rustles through the leaves, carrying the sound inside. Their balcony is small but there are potted plants and a small apple tree, the conifer bonsai that his grandmother gifted him when he married Curtis one of the few decorations he kept and now finally flourishing.

“Hey,” Keith greets him with a soft smile.

“Hey, babe.” Shiro drops his bag and toes off his shoes, crossing the room to pull Keith to his feet and hug him. “It’s over.”

“Yeah?” Keith asks, burying his face in Shiro’s sweat-dampened shirt.

“Mmm. It feels good. Better than I thought.” He worried, of course. Whether this was the right decision after all, even if it felt more like an inevitability towards the end. He tightens his arms around Keith anyway, pressing his nose to Keith’s hair and inhaling deeply.

Keith laughs at the gesture, like always. “It’s still weird when you do that.”

“I know,” Shiro mutters. “I don’t care, I like weird.”

“I like _you_ ,” Keith jibes, and Shiro knows it’s a ploy, an easy set-up for something they’ve been working towards for months now.

Today, he finally can do it. “I love you.”

Keith goes still for a moment and then, impossibly, melts further into Shiro. “I love you, too.”

Shiro expected the admission to feel like a fresh start, another new beginning in the seemingly endless list of chances that Shiro’s been given—but instead it feels familiar down to his core, the words already settled there, firm and solid and waiting to grow into something even more magnificent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: The work contains some implicit themes of violence; Keith is captured by the Galra and kept captive in shackles for some time. I had not realised that the reading of this section is ambiguous and want to clarify that there is _no_ sexual assault; he is only a prisoner to them and an example of a captured BoM member, showing that the BoM are hardly infallible. 
> 
>  
> 
> -
> 
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta)
> 
>  
> 
> This author replies to comments. 
> 
> ~~P.S. Permission to kill me is granted upon leaving a comment :)~~
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Tumblr](http://saucerfulofsins.tumblr.com) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/saucerfulofsins)


End file.
